


The Mechanics of a Winchester Childhood

by prisoner_of_conscience



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Dean Winchester Whump, Dean confides in his brother, Dean winchester has hopes and dreams, Gen, Hurt Dean Winchester, John Winchester Tries, John is a Bit Not Good, Sam Winchester Feels, Sam Winchester Takes Care of Dean Winchester, Teenchester, dean winchester wants to go to college
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-30
Updated: 2020-11-30
Packaged: 2021-03-10 00:00:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,670
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27804982
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/prisoner_of_conscience/pseuds/prisoner_of_conscience
Summary: Dean and John are out on a hunt and Sam is left alone to do his homework. As much as he wants a normal life, he comes to realize that his brother might want the same. For the first time, Sam realizes that Dean has hopes and dreams too ... Even if he doesn't talk about them.Featuring physical and emotional Dean whump, sad Sam, and a conflicted John Winchester.Dean is 18 and Sam is 14.
Relationships: Dean Winchester & John Winchester, Dean Winchester & Sam Winchester, John Winchester & Sam Winchester
Comments: 2
Kudos: 93





	The Mechanics of a Winchester Childhood

Sam sat at the small round table by the window of the cramped room. His left hand absent-mindedly picked at the wood finish, easily peeling off the cheap lacker to reveal the unstained wood. He stared blankly at the lined page in front of him—unable to bring himself to write about the prompt before him. 

_ Write two pages on a family member of your choosing. What is your relationship to them? Where do they work? Where did they grow up? Generate your own interview questions and write a story inspired by their responses.  _

Sam’s active imagination, in this moment, couldn’t invent anything or anyone to write about. Usually, when school assignments didn’t agree with the way they lived, Sam invented some fake scenario, some pretend relative, or some alternate life; no one ever bothered to call him out on it. He doubted that anyone even knew they were lies in the first place. Sam was always told that he didn’t know as much as he thought he did; that there were ‘things he’d understand when he got older’. But truth be told, Sam was confident about himself in one regard—one indisputably true fact— that he could think on his feet. 

In first grade he pretended that his mother was on a work trip in Europe for a few months so she wouldn’t be able to come in and read to the class. In second grade, for show and tell, he brought in his ‘pet’ rabbit that he secretly had Dean borrow from an older girl. In fifth grade, he invented his Aunt Diane who worked in a library in California and sent him books each year for his birthday. 

Sam didn’t call these lies. That wasn’t fair. How could it be fair to call _these_ things lies, when he told the biggest lie every day? _Monsters aren’t real._

Dad always said that some lies are necessary to make a better world. In Sam’s mind, the lies he told at school were just more lies that made the world better— _ his _ world at least. But his time around, Sam was tired of pretending and he just wanted to write the two pages and get the whole thing over with. Especially before Dean and Dad got back home. They said ‘it’d be quick’ and ‘they’d be home before dark.’ But of course, it was already dark and they still weren’t back. Sam wasn’t worried yet—he’d only start panicking if he didn’t hear from them by morning. 

Tapping his pencil against the table, he considered writing about Dean, but knew that his brother hated being the subject of anything—especially at school. Young kids talking and creating weird things or strange stories was just written off as active imagination. For the older kids, though—that was cause for alarm. If Sammy started writing about his brother learning how to drive at twelve or knowing how to stitch someone up, then Dean would get his ass hauled into some counselors office and they’d have to leave town. 

Giving up, Sam moved to the end of the bed and clicked on the TV, hoping for some kind of inspiration. Maybe he could pretend that someone like Marcia Brady was his cousin, or a guy like Corey Matthews had been his neighbor for years. Clicking through weather, local news, low-budget movies and cop procedurals, he settled on  _ The Wonder Years  _ and secretly wished that the show’s title more accurately represented his life. Bored and still depressed over the stupidity of the assignment, restless Sam stood and paced around the small room. His eyes disgustedly passed over the empty cans of Spaghettios and muddy shoes left under the beds. Dean never had to stay behind and do homework. Hell, Dean hardly even had to go to school. Sam couldn’t remember the last time his brother had been to school for an entire, consecutive week. Sam heard his father’s excuses even when the gruff man was absent.  _ Do you really think school is more important than saving people’s lives, Sam? Dean is old enough to make his own choices. I tell him every time I ask for his help on a hunt that if he’d rather go to school then I will happily leave him behind.  _ And Dad knew it was all crap--Dean wouldn't leave Dad or Sam for anything. School had nothing to do with it. Letting his anger out, Sam kicked the end of the bedframe--the weak structure groaning after the blow from the heavy shoe.  _ Why does it have to be like this? Why us? Why me?  _

Despite the littlest Winchester’s age, he always seemed the oldest of the three. And Sam knew this--he exploited that fact all the time much to the irritation of his father. And young Sam didn’t understand why this fact left Dean in a twilight zone. It was an understanding that only adult Sam could comprehend--how Sam was gifted with being both the oldest and the youngest. The oldest in that he was wise beyond his years, he learned faster, hesitated less, knew what mattered and what didn't...But he was also the youngest because he was the most protected, safeguarded, and guiltless. Despite it all, Sammy was always, (just as John and Dean had wanted), the most innocent. All of this left Dean existing in a place of extreme burden with little respect. Young Sam, the Sam in the motel room, couldn’t understand that. 

But he was about to begin learning. 

Sam sat again at the table, tapping the pencil compulsively. Not one to be able to help his own observations, Sam was surprised to see that the small waste basket in the corner of the room held something other than fast food wrappers. Examining the contents, Sam was sure he had missed some vital piece of information that would explain what he was looking at. 

It appeared to be an application--applicat _ ions _ \--for college. They all seemed to be for engineering---mostly mechanical. And some boxes were checked off and portions were clearly eared and re-written and erased again. And Sam couldn’t put it all together. 

Until he saw the faint shadows of a since erased name. 

_ Dean Winchester  _

Sam didn’t think that it could possibly be true. Dean? College? His  _ brother  _ Dean? The one that begged and begged not to go to school and took Dad up on every offer to hunt, wanted to go to college? The very same Dean that never did his homework? None of it made any sense. And before he even had the chance to try and piece it all together, he heard the Impala’s engine in the nearby parking lot. 

_ Great. How was he gonna explain to Dad that he hadn’t finished his work? _

Sam re-crumpled the papers, stashed them back in the garbage can and promptly sat down at the table and began scribbling to make it seem like he’d been working. No secret knocks came upon the door though...no attempt at letting Sam know that it was  _ really  _ Dad and  _ really  _ Dean. So the youngest hunter expertly retrieved the gun from under the pillow, hid behind the door frame to the bathroom, and waited. The door slammed open clunkily and before he processed anything he saw, he heard Dean’s labored breathing. 

“Sam! Put the gun down and come help me with your brother. I promise it’s really me.”

At the sight of Dean’s mangled form, Sam believed his father just this once and went to help. John still had Dean balanced on his shoulder and Sam hurried to help lay Dean on the bed. Dried blood caked Dean’s hairline and even though his brother was wearing a black shirt, Sam could still see that it was darkened. Sam prayed that the staining was sweat. His worries were worsened by the fact that Dean was conscious, but hadn’t yet spoken. 

“Sam, go to the back of the car and get the kit.” 

John’s voice filled the room and Sam didn’t hesitate, didn’t linger. He flew out of the room, retrieved the black bag full of bandages and stolen drugs, and rushed back.

Dean was sprawled on the comforter, feet hanging off the end of the bed. His shirt was lifted, revealing two parallel gashes just above his belly button. Sam watched as John handed Dean a towel.

“Hold this.” 

Dean took the cloth from his father but remained motionless--clearly out of it. 

“To your  _ head,  _ Dean.” 

John moved Dean’s hand to the laceration on his forehead and went about rummaging through the bag that Sam still held. Snapping out of his momentary trance, Sam shoved the bag towards his father and relieved Dean of having to hold the towel to his own wound.

“He-yya S’mmy” Dean mumbled. 

Sam smiled for distraction as he added pressure to the gash on his forehead, and hoped that Dean didn’t notice the needle that Dad was threading. Sam was desperate to know what happened...to ream John out for bringing back his son so bloody and broken. But Dean didn’t like fighting. So Sam kept his mouth shut as Dad prepped his brother’s stomach.

“Dean?” John asked.

The oldest boy’s eyes wandered despite his father’s call; Sam started to worry that Dean was  _ really  _ hurt.

“Dean, son, you with me?” John’s tone was still demanding but even Sam recognized that it was drenched in worry. Sam looked down on Dean with the same worried gaze--one thing the two of them shared. 

“Dean?” Sam inquired. 

Dean’s eyes flashed about the room before settling on Sam’s face. 

“Y...eah?” 

John observed the interaction but ignored it.

“Son, I’m gonna have to stitch you up, ok?”

“..k..” 

Dean shifted uncomfortably on the bed but made little complaint besides an occasional grunt. 

“Dean?” Sam’s voice was timid as he spoke. “You know what day it is?” Sam pulled the towel away from his brother’s head but John snapped.

“Keep putting pressure on it.”

“It stopped bleeding.” 

“Then get a new towel and clean him up.”

Sam did as he was told and emerging from the bathroom, saw that Dean had fallen unconscious. Before Sam could wake him, John intervened. 

“Leave him be until I finish with the stitches. He’ll be ok, Sam. Just got knocked around a bit.”

“A bit? You call a concussion and claw marks being ‘knocked around a little bit’?” 

“My number one priority is you boys. You know that--”

“I don’t think Dean felt like much of a priority tonight.” 

Sam stalked out of the room, anger fuming inside him. With nowhere to go though, he settled for sulking in the backseat of the car; that way, his point had been made but if Dean needed him, he was still right there. 

How could he do that? How could his  _ father  _ leave them alone for weeks at a time, drag their asses across the country, put his  _ sons’  _ safety at risk, and still have the nerve to demand respect? Sam was done. 

He was done being weird and lonely. He was done with hunting and moving and not having a family. He was done feeling bad for not worshiping Dad like Dean did, and he was certainly done watching his brother be thrown around, bruised, scraped and concussed. He just couldn’t do it anymore. If he had to generate one more excuse for why he’d be leaving school, why he never talked about his mom, how he knew how to throw a punch or pick a lock, why his assignments were always done on motel notepads, or why his brother wasn’t in school...if he had to pretend like everything was okay for one more day he would lose it. Really lose it. 

He couldn’t control the flash he had, though; the sight of the crumpled applications. For the first time, Sam realized that Dean wanted out too. Maybe his big brother went along with Dad and didn’t complain but Dean must have really wanted out because he didn’t take abandonment lightly. The one thing his big brother held in the highest regard was loyalty. If Dean wanted to go to college---to leave Sam and Dad---then he must have been just as miserable. Sam’s anger began to give way to sadness and isolation, but his father’s appearance at the motel room door paused his emotional transition. 

“Sam. You can be as mad at me as you want. Believe me, I’m used to it. But I have to go out and you need to make sure Dean stays awake.”

“Are you going to finish the hunt? That’s more important than taking Dean to a hospital?”

“Your brother’s head is thick enough...he’s fine.”

“I hope one of these days you get so roughed up you can’t even stand--I’m gonna leave you all alone in a stupid, dirty room and tell you to suck it up.” 

Sam slammed the passenger door and stomped to the motel room, ignoring his father’s reprimanding tone. Dean was in the same position on the bed, but this time he was awake and looked over to Sam as soon as he came in.

“G’uess ‘d-distance makes the heart grow fonder’ doesn’t really apply to you and Dad, does it?”

Sam’s heart leapt at the proof that Dean wasn’t damaged too badly; never had his brother’s displeasure at fightighting been such a welcomed comment. 

“How are you feeling?”

“Let’s just say I have a new sympathy for scrambled eggs.”

Sam sat gently on the end of the bed and let a small grin emerge--no longer able to hold back his questions. 

“What happened?”

“Man v. mausoleum.”

“Your belly?”

“Belly? After all that work, you can’t even give me the courtesy of calling them abs?”

“Dean--”

“She was just a little handsy, that’s all. Ghost of Graveyard Past was very intimate.”

Sam stared at Dean for an uncomfortably long moment, imagining his brother building engines and designing gears and batteries. Despite the pounding in his head, Dean prompted his brother.

“What?”

...

“Do you ever want a normal life?”

Silence hung in the room and Sam looked away from Dean--his eyes focused on his shoes. 

“Sam, if this is about Dad, I promise that it--”

Sam cut his brother off, standing as he spoke. 

“It’s not about Dad. I just don’t understand why … how can you…”

Rarely did Sam not know what to say. The crumpled applications wouldn’t leave his mind--his brother’s name erased at the top. The very same brother who was lying bloody on a motel bed after being assaulted by a  _ ghost.  _ How could that be the same person?

“Dean, I saw the applications in the garbage.” 

Dean didn’t miss a beat.

“The counselor at school gave them to me to fill out.”

“Dean, they were for mechanical engineering…”

“...and? Sammy, I don’t see your point, man. They made me take them and fill them out.”

“Dean, no one at school knows what you’d wanna do. You chose those programs cause you’re good with your hands. Dean…” Sam trailed off, embarrassed to ask, feeling like he was invading Dean’s privacy. At the same time, Sam’s boldness couldn’t be restrained. “Dean, do you want to go to college?” 

The older boy, embarrassed and caught off guard, defended himself tirelessly.

“They’re from the stupid school, Sam. I’d never leave you and Dad. Besides, it’s not like they’d let me in anywhere; anything I learn gets knocked out, right?” Dean referenced the blow to his head and gave a forced smile. Sam could tell that he wouldn’t get any straight answers so he sent a small smile back and let his brother rest.

“Well I can’t sleep but damned if we’re just gonna sit here in silence. Whaddya wanna do?” 

Dean attempted to turn the conversation back to something casual and Sam didn’t try and stop it.

“I still gotta finish my homework---supposed to write about a family member.”

“Write about Uncle Bobby.”

“Uncle Bobby’s not really our uncle.”

“But Diane from California is our Aunt?” 

Dean smiled again, sending Sam a bitchy look even though he was still lying motionless on the bed. 

“But Bobby’s a  _ hunter,  _ Dean.”

“And a  _ mechanic,  _ Sam. C’mon, I’ll tell you what to write.”

Sam knew Dean’s head must have been pounding, and the lacerations on his stomach burning. To top it all off, Sam had embarrassed him and made him nervous. The little Winchester was filled with guilt. Beyond built, though, he was angry; he didn't quite know why. He just couldn’t understand why Dean didn’t want to talk to him...wasn’t he good enough to confide in? Wasn’t he enough? Dad had just dropped Dean off and bolted--but  _ Sam  _ was the one that Dean couldn’t trust enough to talk to? One more look at his brother’s battered body buried Sam’s grievances. 

“I have to write a stupid story about the person and incorporate little facts.”

“Incorporate--well, Sammy you’re right on track to get that 800 SAT verbal.”

“I’m 14, Dean. It’s not a big word.”

“Yeah, well…better than I could do. C’mon--let’s write this thing and get it over with.”

“I don’t think the one of us with a concussion should be handling the brain power.”

“Then I will be your dedicated audience. You have my full, undivided attention. Fire away.”

Sam went silent for a while, scrawling out a few sentences. He looked over to Dean every few beats to make sure his eyes were still open and every time, Dean shot him a bothered glance. 

“If you keep checking on me every three seconds, I’ll be 40 by the time you finish.”

Sam shrugged and looked back at his paper in preparation of reading the short paragraph to Dean.

“ _ My Uncle Bobby is a mechanic--he fixes everything that’s broken. His auto shop and salvage yard outside of Sioux Falls is nothing but one big collection bin of Lost and Found. People from all over come to locate parts and trade stories--to deposit something they’ve found or search for something they’ve lost. My brother and I spent a lot of time at that salvage yard looking for things we thought we’d lost. And we never found what we were looking for, not really. But my Uncle Bobby, he taught us that you don’t have to hope that what you need is out there--sometimes you just have to make it yourself.  _

_ I was never good with my hands; was never good at building or putting back together.  _

_ My brother, though? My brother can fix anything you put in front of him. Engine, brake line, gear, battery...you name it. I was always worried that I’d never learn how to make what I needed for myself--that I’d never learn how to fix things. But my brother makes sure that I never have to… _ ”

Sam wasn’t sure that he’d ever told Dean anything remotely close to what he’d written. Not that it wasn’t true--it was all true--but no chick flick moments, right? Sam didn’t look at Dean. He waited patiently for any kind of response.

“Well there’s a college essay right there--” Dean abruptly stopped at the sound of the Impala’s engine just outside. Dean’s body stiffened but Sam remained in his seat at the table relatively unaffected. He was ready to continue his argument with Dad just as soon as the man stepped through the door. At the sound of the secret knock, Sam was ready to launch into criticism. He was paused by the sight of the suspiciously official-looking white bags. Without so much as a word, John unraveled the tops of what appeared to be prescription bags and removed two little yellow bottles in addition to a few tubes of assorted gels and lotions. 

“You feeling ok?”

“Fine.”

“You’re not too dizzy? Nauseous?”

“Mostly tired. Head’s pounding.”

“Yeah...sorry about that. How’s the stomach?”

“I’m okay.”

“Picked up the good stuff--you can sleep in a few hours.”

Sam watched as John filled a glass with water, opened the bottles, unscrewed the tops of the tubes and went about taking care of Dean. Sam felt a red hot shame flood his body but he remained silent and sat, continuing his homework and trying to remain invisible. He was nervous to hear his name called, but didn’t let it rattle him too much.

“Sam? You finish your homework?”

“Yes, sir.”

“So I’m ‘Sir’ now, am I?”

The sarcastic, dry, condescending tone sparked Sam’s incendiary nature but he bit his tongue and didn’t respond. Luckily, John dropped the conversation and moved towards the door.

“I got another room so Dean can rest in quiet. Sam?” The youngest Winchester looked at his father. “Stay with him a few more hours; don’t keep him up. You’re going to school tomorrow so you better get sleep too. I’ll be next door.”

( ) ( ) ( ) 

Two hours had gone by and Sam’s eyes were beginning to blink for longer and longer...his head beginning to lull. Dean had the TV on but wasn’t watching it at all. Sam was sure that it was safe for Dean to go to sleep and Sam was desperate for rest himself. They’d been moving pretty consistently and with Dean on the mend they might actually have to stay here a little longer; Sam wanted to capitalize on as much sleep and routine and stability as he possibly could. Tucking into the bed across from Dean’s, he told his brother he could sleep now. Sam asked if there was anything he needed but Dean declined, insisting the only thing he needed was sleep. Sam’s eyes had been closed for a few minutes when Dean’s whisper broke the fatigue-induced silence.

“If I could take you with me...if Dad wasn’t...if we didn’t do what we do...I--” His thought hiccuped. “I’d want to go to college...yeah.”

Sam rolled over to face his brother but didn’t speak.

“Night, Sammy.”

“G’night, Dean.”

  
  



End file.
